(Photo is a screenshot of a video courtesy of Visit Savannah) Jamie Deen opens the "You've Got to Come to Savannah" tourism video produced by local videojournalist Michael Jordan. Jordan's video won the Visit Savannah YouTube Video Contest and will be used in the organization's marketing efforts this summer.

Jamie Deen and 100 other Savannahians — celebrities and otherwise — will court visitors to Savannah this summer in a Visit Savannah YouTube tourism video.

The promotional piece, titled “You’ve Got to Come to Savannah”, is the winner of a competition sponsored by Visit Savannah last fall. The contest was done in response to criticism leveled at a video produced by Visit Savannah that featured a dancing statue touring downtown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykh_C4Rx7-U

Savannah freelance videojournalist Michael Jordan produced the winning video and claimed the $7,500 first prize. Jordan owns Cosmos Mariner Productions, which specializes in documentaries and films about Coastal Georgia’s history.

His 3-minute, 30-second video touches on Savannah’s history as it relates to tourism but also incorporates the city’s other tourism-related activities, from food and entertainment to shopping and recreation. The video starred 101 Savannahians talking about their town, many of them celebrities like Deen, Stratton Leopold and Kim Pelote.

Jordan’s aim was to create a video that would appeal to locals and tourists alike.

“It was so much fun to make; it was infectious,” Jordan said. “I had so many locals tell me they watched it and were like ‘I want to visit there and I live there.’ That was really gratifying.”

Jordan’s video was one of five finalists. A judging panel narrowed the field of 15 entries to the finalists in early March, and the public helped choose the winner. More than 2,500 votes were cast.

Visit Savannah awarded second and third-place prizes in the contest as well. Mary Siceloff’s “Choose Your Savannah,” which incorporated an interactive element, finished second and “Savannah is the Place to be,” a video starring a hand puppet and produced by Savannah College of Art and Design grad Christopher Heady, took third place.

“We knew that everyone’s view of how to promote our city would vary,” Visit Savannah’s Joe Marinelli said. “However, we also learned through this process that creating a video with the intent of it going viral on the Internet is certainly not as easy as everyone thought.”

Visit Savannah’s original YouTube video, “Come to Life in Savannah,” has been viewed more than 21,000 times since its October upload. The piece features the General Oglethorpe statue that looms over Chippewa Square coming to life and leading a conga line through the historic district.

The video highlighted Savannah’s top tourism sites but was panned as a “minstrel show” by critics.

Jordan liked Visit Savannah’s efforts and wasn’t motivated to produce a “replacement” for the “Come to Life in Savannah” video. The piece’s relatively low number of views — videos that go viral typically have views in the hundreds of thousands and millions — is misleading as an indicator of success.

“It’s not about how many see it but who sees it and what they do with it,” Jordan said. “If it attracts people here, that’s the point. With mine, I was just trying to get across what the people in the video said, that you’ve got to come to Savannah.”